Nested Stories – Marked for Plot

Watchmen

Watchmen has been touted as one of the best comics to come out of all time. Historically, many such novels lauded as ‘all time bests’ in the fantasy and science fiction genres have not lived up to the hype for me. Watchmen however, feels like the real deal. It’s dark and gritty, a take on superheroes that feels more nuanced than other deconstructions of superhero stories I’ve seen (such as Hench, Steelheart, or The Boys, all of which I very much enjoyed). It’s tough to read in a lot of places, and not a story I was interested in binge-reading. However, the juice was absolutely worth the squeeze, and I think it has a lot of important things to say about America and its fascination with superheroes.

Read if Looking For: layers of theme, episodic chapters, cold war stories, low powered supers (mostly), comics that get studied at colleges, epistolary comics

Avoid if Looking For: mindless fun, protagonists who are good people, books free of sexism and homophobia, diverse protagonists

Regicide: Saints of Firnus

Every once in a while a book recommendation passes beneath your nose that captures your attention. Regicide was that way. It started with a compelling cover, a blurb that promised grimdark fantasy elements, and a lack of clear romance plotline. It lived up to some of those promises and had some legitimately interesting developments, but was undercut by a dire need for another readthrough and round of proofing and edits.

Read if Looking for: Redwall for adults, morally upright protagonists in dystopian worlds, author-created illustrations, characters who happen to be gay

Avoid if You are Looking for: polished prose, multi-POV stories, deep themes or nuance, romance, books without depictions of intense racism, lots of magic

Mister B. Gone

I’ve known the name of Clive Barker for a while now. Hellraiser is influential enough that even someone who absolutely despises horror movies knows its basic imagery. He’s an author lauded as a pioneering queer writer and an author I had no intention of touching with a 10 foot pole. Mister B. Gone was recommended to me by a friend who swore it was their favorite book of all time though, and so I took the plunge into this dark comedy. It wasn’t a perfect book, but the writing was engrossing enough that I’m curious to try some of his books that are more widely lauded.

Read if You Like: Fourth-wall breaking, morally bankrupt (but likeable) protagonists, humorous asides, demons and angels

Avoid if You Dislike: books without a strong A-Plot, engrossing climaxes, straightforwardly gay characters

The Black Hunger

As part of pride month, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and discussing about how avoiding problematic tropes can lead to more problematic tropes. Bury Your Gays (other than being a Chunk Tingle novel I very much want to read) is a classic example of authors, playwrights, and screenwriters killing off queer characters as a way of saying this person was bad and immoral sort of like how literally every Disney Villain dies due to their own character flaws. That trend is bad and problematic, but its backlash led to such predictable happy endings that I didn’t get the same beautiful tragedy and sadness in queer speculative fiction that I could find in cis/het works. Thankfully, I think this is being seen and rectified, mostly by queer authors themselves. I’m all for tragic gays making a comeback.

The Black Hunger is a great example of how bad endings for queer characters isn’t problematic on its own. It’s only bad when used as a way to demonize queer folks. And while I had some issues with the book, I had a great time with it as part of my continued exposure therapy to the horror genre after being traumatized by watching The Mummy when I was five (I still don’t like beetles to this day). Unfortunately, this book struggled in other areas, mostly related to depictions of Buddhism, which will rightly be a dealbreaker for many.

Read if Looking For: older gay male representation, evil cultists (and Russians), far too many teeth, slow burn gothic horror

Avoid if You Dislike: multiple narrators, Epistolary novels that don’t read like letters, authors taking liberties with real-world religions without getting it quite right

Empress of Salt and Fortune

I credit my relatively newfound love of Novellas to Empress of Salt and Fortune. I used to be the type of reader who loved doorstopper books – and I still do! – but had a ‘more is always better’ approach to books. Now, I think that the length of a novella gives space for writers to do really interesting, focused stories. I tend to find them more cohesive on the whole, and Empress of Salt and Fortune is a great example of Novellas at their finest.

Read If Looking For: framing narratives, the human impact of rebellions, emotional stories, character studies

Avoid if Looking For: traditional action and politics to happen on screen

Convergence Problems

I don’t read a ton of short fiction, but I’ve been trying to pick up more anthologies after loving Exhalation by Ted Chiang. Convergence Problems features the story A Dream of Electric Mothers, which is one that had been on my list to try out. What I found was a book of stories I burned through in a few afternoons.

Read If Looking For: anthologies, gorunded Sci Fi, parallel storytelling, the link between cultural beliefs and technology,

Avoid if Looking For: a novel,

A Conspiracy of Truths

My love for framing narratives will likely become a running theme on this blog. When executed well, I find they make stories come to life, and they inherently channel the oral storytelling traditions that the fantasy genre calls home. A Conspiracy of Truths is one of the best of them. This book was an impulse purchase from Half Priced Books, and it gave me not only one of my favorite books of all time, but an author whose catalog blows me away.

Read If Looking For: unique protagonists, political manipulation, the power of storytelling

Avoid if Looking For: stories where the main character can leave a prison cell to actually take part in what’s traditionally the ‘plot’ of a book

The Spear Cuts Through Water

I have long been chasing classic epic fantasy stories featuring gay characters, and have been disappointed over and over again. I love romances (and read many of them) but finding stories focused on gay men where romance plot structures don’t dominate is horribly difficult. I put of reading The Spear Cuts Through Water for a long time, out of fear it would not live up to my hopes for it. When I read it, I discovered the best book I’ve ever read.

Read If Looking For: ambitious books, mythic style writing, heartrending and terrifying characters

Avoid if Looking For: a straightforward story

Welcome to Forever, by Nathan Tavares

This is a book that I picked up more or less on a whim. Another book by this author (which I haven’t read yet) was recommended to me, and when I saw this was being published in 2024, I committed to picking it up for my bingo challenge. I was not prepared for a story that would make me cry, force me to sit with my emotions for about a month before I could read anything with any depth whatsoever, and rocket into my all time favorites.

Read if Looking for: experimental books, weird memory stuff, complex characters, crying

Avoid if Looking For: straightforward writing, characters making good decisions, plot focused on action and/or external conflict